


The Return

by deborah_judge



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Deleted Scene, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:53:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara wants to come back, she just doesn't know how. But then again, she's done it before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Return

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses [the alternate version](http://rutube.ru/tracks/4144688.html) of Kara's return, in which, instead of reappearing in a magically flawless viper, she mysteriously appears on the _Galactica_ , in Lee's bedroom. No, really.
> 
> This fic was written for the bsg_epics ship-swap challenge and is my first time attempting to write Kara/Lee. Many, many thanks to embolalia for betareading and many helpful conversations, and to sci_fi_shipper and the other brilliant Kara/Lee shippers at Epics for support and inspiration.

When Kara says she isn't going to come back she doesn't mean that she doesn't want to. She means that she doesn't know how. But then again, she's come back once before.

*

Kara was standing in Lee's quarters on the _Galactica_. Lee couldn't believe she'd returned. And Kara knew it made no sense, she was in a Viper and it exploded and then she was standing there in, of all places, Lee's bedroom. But there she was.

"Hello, Lee," Kara said. "I've been to Earth. I know where it is. And I'm going to take us there."

*

There are things that Kara can do, in this form, and slowly she starts to do them. Settlements need rain, so she squeezes a cloud. They need light, so she pushes the cloud away. There are other things to do as well, and they matter. There are other things, though, that she can't do at all. Like hit something and have it hurt, or fall on the ground and feel it solid beneath her. Or stop thinking about Lee.

Lee wanders, like he said he would. He climbs mountains but they bore him. Then he goes from settlement to settlement. Every place he went they take him in, feed him, tell him their stories, and aren't surprised at all when he moves on.

It's a hard life, on Earth, enough to make Kara wish that her destiny had been to bring them someplace better, maybe with more of their equipment intact. Kara watches Lee watch a young man die of fever, like Sam had almost died. He prays to the One True God as he dies. Kara tries to reach out, to cure him, but she doesn't quite know how, and the prayer isn't helping. It would have been easily curable, without any miracles, if only they still had antibiotics. But then, there never would've been enough to go around. For a moment she thinks she can see another universe, in which different decisions had been made: humans and Cylons fighting over the few scraps of technology before everything was gone. It sounds like New Caprica.

The young man - his name is Joel - prays for the One True God to take his spirit. Kara watches Joel's spirit fly past her. She could follow it, if she wants. She doesn't want to. She has no interest in the One True God.

*

"It's not possible," Lee said. "I saw you die." And maybe she did. She remembered going into the maelstrom, she remembered not being afraid of it. Then there was Earth. She knows she was there. She's got pictures.

"Maybe I did," she said, "but I'm here now. And I can take you to Earth."

"That's not possible," he said. "None of this is real."

*

She tries going to Lee in a dream because she can do that, now. She starts with memories of them flying together, and Gods they could fly in a way that felt like sex. And then there's the first memory: Lee's on her like fire, and Zak's asleep nearby and she really should care but frak how can she? It starts like a dare, Kara proving for the zillionth time that she doesn't belong to anyone, but then something changes and she thinks that might not exactly be true. And it feels like flying except for how it feels like falling and maybe dying and all she can think about is getting Lee naked and in her. Then she makes the scene shift (and she can, because it's a dream) and Zak isn't there (she'll deal with the guilt of that later) and they're in a house that's theirs and no one else's but the dining room table is still covered with empty shot glasses and there's no reason in the world they shouldn't have everything they want, right here and right now.

Lee shakes in his dream, and comes, spilling onto the grass where he's sleeping. Kara watches, feeling empty and sick. This dream-fantasy-thing, that's not what she wants, not from him. That's not who they are. She just doesn't know what else she can be.

*

"I don't understand it either," she said. And there were pieces she could have tried to explain, like the mandala and her mother, but Lee wouldn't have understood them at all. So she tried something else. "I just need you to trust me," she said. "Can you trust me?" And maybe he could, although she hadn't earned any trust from him. And that was something else she didn't understand, how Lee could just be so good at trusting her.

He put his hand on her arm. "You're Kara," he said. Of course he trusted her. "You're alive."

*

She tries to take back her human form. She's done it once, she can do it again. And this is Earth, the Earth that she found. She wants to be able to walk on it. And maybe it can't be always or forever, she's got other things she needs to do, but still she wants it, like she wants to hold on to Lee in a way that isn't just a dream. So, she tries. She thinks about encasing herself with flesh. No effect. She tries to pick up a fallen tree-branch and it goes right through her hand. She watches Lee walk on the ground and she envies his solidness. "Damnit, Lee," she shouts out to him, but if he hears it he doesn't pay attention.

While he's walking he talks to her, sometimes, as if he knows she's with him. He points to a valley between two mountains. "That's where I'd like to live," he says. It looks like a good valley. Once he picks a flower and holds it out for her to take. The gesture is sweet, but the way he holds it in the exact wrong direction shatters any illusion that he can see her. "I love you, Kara," he says. "I didn't say it enough. I didn't do enough about it. But it's true." And then he just stares into the distance, like he doesn't know she's been beside him all along.

*

His hand on her arm seared her. Of course she was alive. So was he. She pushed him backwards, then grabbed him, and in half a moment her lips were on his and her tongue was in his mouth. And yeah she had a Destiny, a thing that she had come back to do, but it could frakking well wait because they were both alive and together and she was not going to stop touching him. Lee didn't hesitate (thank the _Gods_ ), let her strip off that ridiculous tie and unbutton his shirt. She put her hand on his chest, then her mouth, feeling his heartbeat through her lips. And then it changed again, and it wasn't not about need, or hunger, and there was nothing that she needed to prove. They were in his room, his bed was behind them, and it was natural, obvious, to lie down on it together. His body was familiar to her, she knew it like she knew him and like he knew her. He pressed her down and covered her and it was like coming home.

"I came back for you," she whispered, just soft enough that he couldn't hear.

*

A stream flows between the mountains. The soil looks ripe for farming. "I could build a house here," Lee says. "Kara." He says her name, then stops, takes a breath. "You could live in it with me, if you want to."

"And I know it's not much," he says. "It's just a house, not a destiny or whatever else you're supposed to have. But you can share it with me. If you want." And, frak, he's still facing the wrong way and she's behind him and it's so ridiculous she wants to laugh at how much and how strangely he trusts her. And suddenly she knows. It's so very simple, what she has to do. It's just as simple as saying yes, and as simple as being alive.

Kara feels the crunch of grass under her feet. She's standing on the ground and it's solid beneath her. It doesn't make any sense, and she can't explain it, but she knows it's always been Lee who gives her the strength to come back. Lee turns, and he's surprised, he doesn't believe and he can't understand. But he trusts her.

"Hello, Lee," she says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Staying Solid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/238307) by [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin)




End file.
